Tether (USDT) Exits Bitfinex Wallet

Overnight, 100 million USDT exited circulation, while the Bitfinex hot wallet sent out millions of USDT to unidentified addresses.

The curious movements of Tether (USDT) throughout wallets is raising more red flags, especially after more than 110 million USDT exited Bitfinex overnight. Bitfinex had become the second-richest USDT wallet, with more than 259 million USDT. But as of October 10, the exchange saw its chief USDT wallet shrink to 143 million USDT.

Now, the Tether Treasury is the second-biggest wallet after Binance, with more than 286 million USDT.

At the same time, selling of USDT remains active on Kraken, as an indicator of attempts to move out into fiat. USDT sank toward $0.98 in about an hour, at around 13:30 UTC on Wednesday. The Kraken price is seen as a soft indicator of the trust in the Tether dollar-pegged coin.

The mysterious movements of USDT come after allegations of the insolvency of Bitfinex, which the exchange denied. Additionally, there is uncertainty about which bank is servicing Bitfinex, as HSBC has cautiously taken on the exchange as a partner.

USDT tokens have seen movements before, and it is possible the transactions are used to send tokens to other exchanges. However, the continued emptying of the Bitfinex Bitcoin wallet that is also happening at a faster pace is pointing to a reaction on fears of the exchange’s stability. The fears may be ungrounded, but the movement of coins and tokens continues, at least for now. Critics believe there are attempts to cash out to other exchanges:

You're all going to find out how much of that "Bitfinex Liquidity" is simply spoof orders and/or fake money. pic.twitter.com/eQYMtK1SYT

— Bitfinex'ed 🐧 (@Bitfinexed) October 10, 2018
The shift to other exchanges is supported by the active inflows into the Huobi wallet.

Shifts in USDT rich list rankings have been observed before, and have not led to any catastrophic events. However, as balances have grown significantly in the past year, the influence of USDT has grown immensely. USDT habitually takes up 20% of all crypto trading volumes, and any movement or anomaly may be an indicator of things to come.

Bitcoin’s market price once again hovers near the $6,500 level. Despite the active influence of USDT, the price is not seeing much upward bidding. BTC traded at $6567.42 as of 13:00 UTC.